After swapping to online at the start of the pandemic I still find it very difficult to judge, but I get the feeling the grocery shop is getting markedly more costly. Wife bought a few bits in a physical Sainsbury’s yesterday and was stunned by the bill. Are others seeing this too, or was it just one of those weird baskets that seems expensive?

No, I do our weekly shop and prices are def creeping up, I also think the reducing of the size of items has sped up across many items now too, pay more and get less!

Family of four, far side of £100 most weeks.

Was sub £80 before Brexvid.

oikeith

No, I do our weekly shop and prices are def creeping up, I also think the reducing of the size of items has sped up across many items now too, pay more and get less!

Yeah the robbing bastards are doing crisps multipacks with 5 packs instead of 6

Varies wildly. Usually 70/20/70/20 over a month but then gets skewed by things like another tenner on bog roll or light bulbs or something, hard to get like for like

I feared or might be those sort of figures not the headline 3% ish. Hmmm.

Project Fear Reality

Yeah the robbing bastards are doing crisps multipacks with 5 packs instead of 6

Broken Britain.

Person shops in Sainsburys and finds it expensive shocker.

Yeah the robbing bastards are doing crisps multipacks with 5 packs instead of 6

Multipacks of crisps have been a rip-off for years, you’re paying mostly for plastic and nitrogen. The number of crisps in the individual bags barely hits double figures.

Yep, it’s getting expensive, and it’s compounded by a lack of a supply meaning a lot fewer ‘offers’.

Our usual weekly shop has gone from £60-£80 to £80-£100.

I can’t wait for this levelling up to kick in, because between the rise in food prices, fuel prices, energy prices, council tax, national insurance (and probably income tax soon) things are getting tighter and tighter.

Person shops in Sainsburys and finds it expensive shocker.

IME there’s no real price difference between Sainsburys, Morrisons, Tesco, ASDA etc when it comes to branded stuff. Own brand stuff differs a lot, but so does the quality. Sainburys works out best for us because I’ll buy 95% own-brand stuff. ASDA own-brand is cheap for a reason.

Family of four, far side of £100 most weeks.

Was sub £80 before Brexvid.

Is that a family of four squirrels?
How the heck do you manage that…. the cheapest weekly shop I’ve done this year was 160 quid. When both kids were home all day then it was getting perilously close to £300 on occasion. Not very often, but occasionally.

Person shops in Sainsburys and finds it expensive shocker.

I shop in Aldi, and have the same view, has gone up from 70-90 quid a week, or thereabouts, family of 3.

Was £450 a month about 5 years ago. Now circa £600.

Family of 4 with two locust-like teenagers.

I’m with The Genaralist on this.  I do most of the shopping and easily see £150-200 a week.  I’m also pretty careful to search out the offers and try to buy own brand where possible and don’t spend out on lots of meat (mostly chicken and some fish). Kids have packed lunches for school.

For too long the burden of Brexit has been borne by our hard working Tory MPs.
I welcome the price rises so that we can truly all ” be in this together”
Let The Lion Roar.

Family of four, far side of £100 most weeks.

Was sub £80 before Brexvid

This is us also. Wife generally asks what we want on the menu for each week, then works out exactly what we need and throws in the odd extra treat, it’s definitely creeping up.
Yes, bring on the levelling out…

Family of 5 mostly shop at ALDI usually around £200 to £250 depending on what crap is picked up in the middle isle.

Aye, meal plan here too, have done for more years than I care to remember. Maybe that’s why we’re not at the 150-200 mark I’d imagine.

Families across Europe are seeing similar rises – and they will continue until supply and demand rebalance across supply chains.

E.g. in Germany, their equivalent of the ONS is reporting 4.9% food price inflation and 14.3% increase in consumer prices and energy.

https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Economy/Prices/Consumer-Price-Index/_node.html

We’ve got a meal plan too, it’s broadly the same each week until someone complains and I have to throw a new dish in.

We don’t have much choice tbh, when we bought our house it came with a brand new kitchen, including the worlds smallest integrated fridge and freezer.

The biggest challenge is the teenager, he’s reached a point when he will decide whether he wants to eat with us or not at the drop of a hat. If he decides he doesn’t he’s cause chaos and destruction to my stocks.

We’ve kept our food costs level, but only by cutting out lots of stuff. Lots. We can’t spend more, so that’s our only option. Some has probably been good for us (no meat at all most weeks). Others not. It doesn’t help that the supply and quality of fruit and veg has dropped significantly at the same time as getting more expensive. We’re arguably on a diet with too high a carb content, and too low on protein and nutrients. I suspect more and more people will be this winter.

We did a total reset on our shopping a few weeks back – moved to click and collect for basics and then do fruit veg etc and met from butcher. Totting it all up its > 25% more than it was before the last few momths.

I run a small village shop, to be able to operate our annual gross margins need to be around 20<25% or better, however Ive seen a dramatic drop in margins from some suppliers where PMP (price marked packs) are concerned over the last few months – on average around a 4% drop.

For example we used to make a 20% margin on a £1 dairy milk – or 20p, this has now dropped to 16% (16p).

Coupled with that, rents and services charges have increased – electricity fro example has doubled.

These costs and price rises have been absorbed by retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers for the last 6months or so. Now it’s being passed down to the consumer.

I managed a 26% gross margin in 2019/20, for 20/21 it dropped to 24%. At the moment it’s 22% which only just covers the costs of the buisness, and allows no movement for growth. I’ll be forced to stock less PMP items so that I can keep stock at a reasonable margin.

I expect supermarkets will provide less deals over the coming weeks and months, with significantly less loss leader deals – bogof and 3for2 etc.

Definitely seeing a rise, and have been for some time now. I’d guestimate probably a 25-30% increase in the last year, perhaps more.

CPI is a con

we all know it

https://notayesmanseconomics.wordpress.com/

Weekly shop is definitely getting more expensive, and rapidly. Last weekend I spent nearly £100 and that was after I decided to cut back as there was stuff in the freezer I could use for evening meals. Most of it was just basics to last the week like bread, salad, pasta, fruit and veg and a single steak

We’ve gone from £65/week living in Hampshire to £100+/week living on the Isle of Mull and that’s buying less / lots of shortages. There’s no online option and it costs £43 for a monthly ferry trip to Oban. Learning to live on Glasgow salad – beans and chips 🤣

Cost of my shop has gone down, but mostly because the shelves are empty of the things I want.

CPI is a con

It’s not just that, though. I simply don’t believe that CPI or RPI are even close to accurate. Literally everything I spend money on has become more expensive over the last year – mostly by 10-20%. And yet, RPI is 4.9% compared with 12 months ago, apparently. The measure we’re supposed to use for cost of living (CPIH) is 2.9%.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices

It’s just nonsense to make it appear that we’re not in a period of wage stagnation and crippling inflation.

Just the 2 of us

I monitor all spending in a spread sheet, this includes all food, drink, eating out, and my mrs cleaning materials etc. There was a marked move up 3 years ago, quite a bit less during lockdown, and now ramping up again

Manageable for us but I dread to think what people on a lesser wage or more people to feed are going through.

Its not going to end well

only a slightly different tangent I visited my home town for a curry 2 weeks ago, the price is now £7 – it was £5 for the last 15 years- thats 2 curries, 2 nan breads, 2 roti, 2 cans of pop 🙂

only a slightly different tangent I visited my home town for a curry 2 weeks ago, the price is now £7 – it was £5 for the last 15 years- thats 2 curries, 2 nan breads, 2 roti, 2 cans of pop 🙂

😯Had a curry on Monday night – 2currys, rice and Nan’s £25…..

We eat mostly fresh veg, salad and a lot of meat don’t really eat processed food but when I buy some thing like burgers or pizza for the kids they’ll be a the top end of the price range rather than the crap they push out for kids. Im sure if I used Sainsburys it would be closer to £350 a week at least.

When we were on hols particularly rural Spain to eat how we ate at home was ridiculously expensive in fact it was almost cheaper to eat out. Probably the real price of non intensively farmed foods

Costs are definitely going upwards, but get yourself to Aldi or Lidl for the Lion’s share of your shopping and see how much of a rip-off other places are. Yes the range isn’t great, but the lack of choice makes shopping simpler and cheaper. We occasionally have to pop back as items have a short shelf life, or go to another shop for other things but mostly it works out ok.

I can’t wait for this levelling up to kick in, because between the rise in food prices, fuel prices, energy prices, council tax, national insurance (and probably income tax soon) things are getting tighter and tighter.

SUNLIT UPLANDS.

Absolutely agree that personal inflation and the CPI/RPI sure never going to align, but currently they feel poles apart.
Winter of discontent…. Followed by spring summer and autumn of utter dispair.

get yourself to Aldi or Lidl for the Lion’s share of your shopping and see how much of a rip-off other places are.

Why has no one thought of this before!?!?

🤦🏻‍♂️

get yourself to Aldi or Lidl for the Lion’s share of your shopping and see how much of a rip-off other places are

I find they’re no better than Tesco for fruit and veg and only slightly cheaper for meat. Pre-packaged stuff like their pizzas are quite a bit cheaper but I don’t eat much of that kind of stuff. The real issue I have with Lidl/Aldi is that I can’t get everything I’m after under the one roof and I’m still not prepared to go to more than 1 place for my weekly-ish shop. And mask wearing is even slacker in Lidl than in my local Tesco.

Was looking at my spending last week and my food bill has jumped up a good 25% in the last few months. I live alone so it’s only £25-30 a week usually but if that’s an indicative jump for everyone then it’s a big chunk for families. Worked out my personal inflation (fuel, utilities and food) to be just under 34% compared to last year, file and electric being the other major ones.

I fear it’s just going to get worse over the winter and God knows what they have planned for next year.

Costs going up, shop for four was about £100 a week, eldest now at uni so food shop slightly lighter.

Definitely fewer worthwhile offers. Cafe stops edging up to £6-7 depending on where and what, previously £5-6.

If we go back to the office, fuel is going to be a killer on top.

We are lucky, we can afford it and in relatively secure jobs, but we are just watching things carefully, must be a nightmare for those struggling. I’m already looking at “treats” like beers or posh crisps when I’m shopping and starting to put them back.

The number quoted ( CPI 3.1% ) is not a cost of living measure. Whereas the UK cost of living measure or RPI in fact ROSE from 4.8% to 4.9%.
Why does no-one at @BBCBusiness know this? https://t.co/M1PIN7fIR2

— Shaun Richards (@notayesmansecon) October 20, 2021